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Though the tents are among the most luxurious cocoons I’ve experienced in my three trips to the Okavango Delta, the bush starts right on the doorstep. On both nights I was awakened by a pod of hippos bivouaced right offshore, where they provided a little night music, belching, bickering, grunting, and snorting their way toward sunrise. (They’re the lagoon’s Beta House.) Just after dawn, heralded by the madcap call of red-billed franklins, sacred ibis rose from the reeds and vectored off to their feeding grounds. At breakfast, vervet monkeys splashed down onto low branches, convinced that today they were going to nail the buffet. Mid-bite into an ostrich burger at lunch one day, I watched the vanguard of an elephant herd emerge onto the lagoon shore, about 100 yards away, and each evening, trained my binoculars on the red lechwe gathered in the shallows, their russet coats burnished by the sun’s slant rays. It’s lazy man’s game viewing at its best, although you do go farther afield on game drives. The highlight of my stay was seeing a pair of young male cheetah stretched out on a termite mound. I captured them using the photo equipment, a Canon 40D digital camera and a pair of telephoto lenses, that is in each tent—about the coolest game-lodge amenity I’ve ever come across.

It costs $1,149-$1,799 per person per night—that’s all-inclusive—to stay at Zarafa. That makes the camp among the most

Cool Cats Near the Camp.

expensive in Botswana. For that you get the luxury of space—a three-room expanse to live in, not just a place to kill time in between game drives, as is the case at many lodges, especially older ones. The staff and food are first rate, and the location is an orchestra seat on a remote corner of southern Africa.

Of course, you can get some or almost all of that at other camps for less. It’s just that here you’re also underwriting a vision.

Best Time to Go: July through September, the dry season when game congregates around permanent water sources like the Zabandianja Lagoon. But Zarafa is open all year.

Getting There: Fly to Johannesburg on South African Airways, which offers the only non-stops from the US (New York and Washington, DC), and from there to Maun, Botswana, to pick up a bush plane. A layover in Johannesburg is advisable. Two good hotels are the Westcliff (www.westcliff.co.za) and the Saxon (www.thesaxon.com). The former is about 25 minutes from the airport, the latter about an hour.

FESSING UP: I was a guest at Zarafa for two nights and made the trip courtesy of Ker & Downey.

TO FOLLOW ME: You must open an account at forbes.com, and the best way to do that is at forbes.com rather than via a social media site. You’ll receive an e-mail confirming your account. Now, you have to re-enter forbes.com, type Gary Walther into the white box in the upper right that reads: Search companies, people and lists. That brings you to the Hotel Detective page, one that includes the +Follow link. Click on that and you’re a follower.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: Cool suites with master-of-the-universe views of Manhattan. The Saint Barths luxury hotel resume. A new hotel in an Italian city famous for Romeo and Juliet.

HOTEL QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel.—Fran Lebowitz